Killing Children

A long time ago, I wrote an infamous piece at BLACKFIVE called "On the Virtues of Killing Children." The virtue was, specifically, that if you allowed the enemy to use children as human shields they'd keep doing it; whereas if you struck them regardless of their use of children as shields, taking all care you could to avoid killing the children but not letting their presence prevent the strike, you would quickly convince militant groups not to use the children in this way. It would provide them no benefit, and all the difficulties that are entailed by having lots of children around when you're trying to work. That piece was referenced by my friend Marc Danzinger, known in the old days as "Armed Liberal" of the Winds of Change blog, at this discussion of a similar scene in the Iliad.

Today, the United States military announced that it recently killed a lot of children -- and none of its enemies -- in that drone strike following the ISIS-K attack on the airport in Kabul. No disciplinary action is expected, per CDRUSCENTCOM, and the US stands by its intelligence. 

General Milley says that this strike featured "the same level of rigor" as our other drone strikes. It is more terrifying to consider that he might be speaking the truth about that than otherwise. 

What has become of the fighting force in which I once reposed such faith, and whose cause I so gladly joined in my youth? What has become of the virtuous nation whom I thought, once, could be trusted even to strike under such perilous circumstances as when the enemy was willfully using human shields? Was I blind when I was young, as the young often are? Or is it true, as I would rather believe, that corruption has tainted and destroyed what was once a noble force of honor and purpose? 

The end of that infamous piece closes with a prayer for mercy and forgiveness for what we have done. That much, at least, remains right. 

9 comments:

  1. Our fighting force remains vibrant and sound, although it's in great peril.

    What we've lost is integrity and the fight to win spirit in our military management (there is no leadership above the combatant commanders, and maybe not at that level, too), and for a longer period in our political management.

    Eric Hines

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  2. Umnnhhhhh.....what the US and Britain did to Dresden preceded your time in the military. They also did a number on Munster, though not as horrific.

    Here's the real question: how many times HAS the US military blown away innocents, whether deliberate or not, granting that there is a moral difference?

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  3. The unique thing to me is how the DOD is saying, they 'stand by our intelligence assessment'. That's simply amazing, a revelation if there ever was one.

    I guess the intelligence experts were looking for ISIS-K and settled for ISIS K-through-12.

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  4. Aggie,

    Now that's military humor if ever I heard it.

    D29,

    So, contra John Wayne's character in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, it's not true that the Army never changes ("The sun and the moon change, but not the Army!"). The WWII army did things that were later declared to be war crimes, and the USMC at that time would often mail home the skulls of their enemies to be used as decorations about the house.

    Nevertheless, the military of the Reagan era was -- I think -- moral and upright, with an intense effort to craft Aquinas' Just War theory into military law. I thought, even as late as my time in Iraq, that we took care not to kill truly innocent people and to pay compensation if by accident we did. Indeed I helped work on compensation packages as part of my own work in tribal affairs there, keeping the peace with people should one of our artillery illumination packages not go off correctly and instead fall on some poor guy's house. And I know for a fact that every round fired had to be accounted for after the Surge, once combat dropped to a low enough level that this was possible to do.

    What this indicates to me is that, at least under Biden, that's off the table. We don't care anymore if we kill innocents; nobody will be punished and (as Aggie says) "we stand by the intelligence."

    That's a different world. It's still different from Sherman and Sheridan's army, which unhoused the weak on the march to the sea and then again down the Shenandoah valley, and then used those same techniques to suppress the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Apache among others. It's different from WWII. It's different from Vietnam. But it's also different from the military I once knew, I am pretty sure, even though occasionally hard things happen even in the best war most chivalrously fought.

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  5. You were 25% blind in youth.

    I've seen worse.

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  6. The SEAL who shot Bin Laden is having a similar moment, I see.

    https://twitter.com/mchooyah/status/1439332014507888655?s=21

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  7. ymarsakar7:24 AM

    What has become of the fighting force in which I once reposed such faith, and whose cause I so gladly joined in my youth? What has become of the virtuous nation whom I thought, once, could be trusted even to strike under such perilous circumstances as when the enemy was willfully using human shields? Was I blind when I was young, as the young often are? Or is it true, as I would rather believe, that corruption has tainted and destroyed what was once a noble force of honor and purpose?

    I myself was a purely patriotic "American" after 2001, Grim. As you may still recall, hopefully, even with the bio weapon effects.

    Satan controlled this world. They owned everything. All kingdoms, all nations. THe promise made to tempt Yeshua/Jesus was real. Satan wsa not lying.

    All capital is owned by Satan, before 2012 at least. All kingdoms. ALl property.

    Satan was given ownership of, temporarily, to test the human individuals as Job was tested.

    These are all Divine lessons, to teach human children what it means to be children of god. They are being trained for a new job. And some won't graduate. Thta is fine. THey will be recycled or reborn elsewhere.

    From GOd's pov, killing people is not such a bad thing, because it takes the soul away from Satan and frees it. And we can always build another body for that spirit anyways.

    If this type of power scares people, then what is the alternative?

    OBEY FAUCI? Hell naw.

    It'd rather the World Kill Itself, than to continue watching the children of god by lead by Satan in killing and torturing other children.

    This is DIvine Judgment. There is no appeal.

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  8. Your tracing of Army history is interesting, Grim; it appears that when US armed forces are under (D) C-in-C, they are........not moral.

    Hmmmm.

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  9. Lincoln and Grant were definitely Republicans, as was Nixon.

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